True Blood Season Finale

Summers are known for warm weather, vacations, barbecues and bad television. But thankfully cable televion has changed all that by offering new shows to chase away the summer lull.  Many cable shows start their new season during the summer. My summer guilty pleasure is True Blood on HBO. The show premiered last summer and personally, I thought it sucked.  It had a rough start. The first couple of episodes were unbearable. The southern accents were terrible as was the acting. The storyline moved too slowly. I just knew I was going to remove this show from my Sunday night viewing schedule. But around episode 4, True Blood found its footing and is now one of my favorite shows to watch. Last night was the much anticipated season finale. After an exciting build up all season with the MaryAnn/Sam plot, I just knew that the season was going to end with a bang. Instead it went out with a wimper and fizzled.

*Warning! The rest of this post contains spoilers*

The first 30 minutes of the show was great. The story arc regarding MaryAnn came to its conclusion. We all knew that she was going to be killed. The question was: Who was going to kill her and how? It was very interesting how she died. I didn't see it coming. All I have to say is I'd always assumed Bill would snuff out MaryAnn. I was wrong. After MaryAnn bit the dust, the people of Bon Temps returned to their normal lives. The next day, the townsfolk are in Merlotte's speculating about what could possible have happened the night before. No one has any recollection of what took place so the theories ranged from a gas leak to an alien invasion. The scene focuses on the conversation between two women sitting at a table. Supposedly Charlaine Harris (author of the Sookie Stackhouse books) makes an appearance in this scene. I think she was the woman sitting at the bar. I'm not sure. I completely missed it because I don't know what Charlaine looks like. I'm going to have to watch it again on HBO On Demand after I Google her picture (I don't know what she looks like).

The final 30 minutes of the show commenced with Bill sending Sookie a dress and asking her out on a dinner date, Eggs asking Sookie to help him remember what he did while he was under MaryAnn's influence, Hoyt finally growing a pair and standing up to his momma, Sam taking off to find his birth parents and Jessica appearing to go on a killing spree. (Little did she know Hoyt was at her house, roses in hand ,ready to kiss and makeup). This half of the episode had too much going and managed to still be a tad boring. It felt like Alan Ball was trying to give the audience a preview of next season's plot lines, but it caused the second half of the show to drag and be anti-climatic. I think that the MaryAnn story should have been the major focus point of the season finale. The last 10-12 minutes should have been dedicated for setting up what's going to happen in Season 3.

I still love the show even though I was disappointed by the lackluster finale. I will watch it when it returns next summer. In the meantime, I'm currently reading Living Dead in Dallas - which is the basis of Season 2 - so that I can compare how closely the show followed the book.

My rating for the Season 2 finale - 3 out of 5 stars.